Hospitality Over Hype: How Michael Mina Built His Restaurant Group to Last

15 Minute read

28 Mar 2025

Journalist

The James Beard Award–winning chef on why scaling slowly, investing in people, and staying off TV helped Mina Group become one of the most enduring forces in American dining.

Michael Mina has more than 30 restaurants across the United States, a James Beard Award, and over three decades in the business—yet he’s rarely the loudest name in the room. While other chefs have chased the spotlight through television or celebrity branding, Mina built a different kind of empire: one grounded in hospitality, systems, and soulful cooking.

With Mina Group, he’s created a model that bridges scale and intimacy, consistency and creativity. It’s not just about replicating hits, but nurturing talent, developing infrastructure, and evolving thoughtfully. In an industry often obsessed with the new, Mina’s staying power is something else entirely.

This profile is part of Fine Dining Lovers’ ongoing series exploring how modern restaurant groups are reshaping the future of dining—one concept, one city, and one team at a time.

Origins of Mina Group

Michael Mina never set out to run a national restaurant group. His original dream was simple: open a restaurant in San Francisco. That dream came true with Aqua, his breakout fine dining restaurant, which helped define the city’s culinary scene in the 1990s. But it was his time working with the Four Seasons—while waiting for Aqua to open—that planted the seed for something bigger.

“I really fell in love with their model,” Mina says. “The infrastructure, the consistency, the way they approached hospitality—it all clicked.”

His second restaurant, at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, introduced him to the world of hotel partnerships and management contracts. Unlike standalone ownership, these deals allowed him to scale without sacrificing focus. It was a different skill set—more collaborative, less hands-on with construction and capital—but one that opened the door to a more sustainable way of growing a business.

At the time, expansion wasn’t always welcomed. “Back then, if you opened a second restaurant, people assumed you were abandoning the kitchen,” Mina recalls. “Critics would question how it helped the food scene. But I always believed that the industry would get stronger if chefs expanded thoughtfully.”

That belief led to the founding of Mina Group—a company built not just around Mina’s name, but around a philosophy of mentorship, innovation, and long-term sustainability. From the start, the goal was to build a business that could thrive beyond any one chef or concept.

Bourbon Steak New York Seafood Trolley. Credit: Rey Lopez

Bourbon Steak New York.

The Operating Philosophy

For Michael Mina, the heart of Mina Group isn’t a brand or a restaurant—it’s a system. From the outset, his goal was to build infrastructure, not just open restaurants. That meant channeling investment into people, technology, and processes, rather than physical spaces.

“Most chefs start by raising money to build one restaurant,” he says. “But when we started Mina Group, we used that capital to build infrastructure instead—HR, marketing, ops—so we could support growth without losing quality.”

That approach was inspired by his time observing the Four Seasons model, where the company operates hotels it doesn’t own. Mina adopted a similar strategy, allowing his group to focus on operations and creativity while hotel partners handled construction and capital costs. The result is a nimble but highly structured organization—one that can execute ambitious concepts without burning out its talent.

At the core of the company is a proprietary framework Mina calls the “Four Box” system. Though details are internal, the structure provides a consistent way to measure performance, align teams, and maintain quality across dozens of properties.

“If you don’t have real systems with real tools, you’ll never get your DNA into the company,” he says. “You’ll just have a mishmash. But if everyone’s working from the same playbook, you get consistency—and culture.”

Now based in Las Vegas, Mina runs the group’s R&D operations from the kitchen at Bourbon Steak, inside the Four Seasons. It functions as both a flagship and a test lab, where Mina and his core culinary team develop new recipes, refine concepts, and prepare for future openings.

“We do everything there—from recipe testing to concept development,” he says. “It lets us innovate and stay hands-on.”

The Mina Group Model

If there’s one thing Michael Mina resists, it’s uniformity. Even with more than 30 restaurants across the country, no two Mina Group properties look or feel exactly alike. That’s by design.

“I never wanted people to walk into one of our restaurants and say, ‘Oh, it’s a chain,’” he says. “That’s not why I got into this.”

The Mina Group model is built on partnerships—often with luxury hotels—and a flexible portfolio of brands that range from fine dining flagships like Bourbon Steak and Orla to more casual or localized concepts. Many restaurants share a core menu DNA, but each one is adapted to its location, from design to wine list to the seasonal dishes on the plate.

It’s a model that borrows from the playbook of hospitality giants like Four Seasons: the group doesn’t own most of its restaurants outright, but instead operates them through long-term management agreements. That allows Mina Group to scale strategically, without the pressure of real estate ownership or outside investors pushing for aggressive growth.

It also makes room for creativity. Some concepts are born from market research; others are shaped by conversations with hotel partners or local chefs. “Sometimes a partner will say, ‘We’d love a brasserie,’” Mina explains. “And we’ll look at the market and decide if we have an existing brand that fits—or if it’s time to create something new.”

Localization is baked into every aspect of the business. Even within the Bourbon Steak brand, menus and experiences vary widely. The Scottsdale location is different from the one in Washington, D.C., which is different from Las Vegas, each one shaped by local talent, product, and guest expectations.

What unites them isn’t a look or a theme—but a shared set of standards and systems. That’s where Mina’s operations team comes in, providing each restaurant with the tools and structure to deliver consistent, high-level hospitality while still making space for individuality.

Mina Desserts. Credit: John Lee Pictures

Mina's Fish House.

Mentorship and Talent Development

Ask Michael Mina what he’s most proud of, and he won’t point to a restaurant. He’ll point to a person.

For Mina, mentorship isn’t a side effect of success—it’s the core of it. Over the decades, he’s quietly built one of the most influential kitchens in the country, not just by creating restaurants, but by launching careers.

“We’ve had people come through our kitchens and go on to do amazing things,” he says. “That’s the most rewarding part.”

Longtime collaborators like Adam Sobel, who spent over a decade helping develop Mina Group concepts, and current leaders like Gerald Chin, now head of culinary, and Veronica Arroyo, the group’s global pastry director, are all part of that legacy. Some remain within the company, taking on leadership roles in culinary R&D and operations. Others have gone on to open their own restaurants or lead major hospitality projects, carrying Mina’s philosophy with them.

This emphasis on mentorship is also strategic. As the group expands, Mina relies on a deep bench of talent—people who understand both the culinary ethos and the operational discipline required to bring a concept to life. That’s part of why the company invests so heavily in internal systems: so chefs, managers, and service staff can grow within a shared framework, even as they express their individuality.

Mina also knows the value of staying connected to younger generations. “At some point, you go from being the youngest person in the room to the oldest,” he says. “If you want to stay relevant, you’ve got to keep learning—and keep teaching.”

Growth Strategy and What’s Next

Even with more than 30 restaurants under his belt, Michael Mina isn’t in a rush to double that number. For him, growth is about longevity, not headlines.

“We’re not trying to open ten restaurants a year,” he says. “Three or four, maybe—that’s our rhythm.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Mina and his team took a two-year pause to rethink everything: systems, training, technology, and operations. The result was a more focused, future-ready approach to expansion—one that emphasizes talent readiness, smart partnerships, and long-term sustainability over sheer volume.

At the operational level, the company’s structure allows for measured growth. Directors of operations oversee small clusters of restaurants, with specialized leads on the culinary and front-of-house sides. Every new opening is tied to available talent and capacity, not just opportunity.

Looking ahead, Mina’s goal isn’t just more restaurants—it’s continued relevance. “The challenge is staying in the game decade after decade,” he says. “That’s the real legacy.”

For a chef who’s spent more than 30 years building not just menus but a framework for hospitality, that legacy is already well underway. Mina Group may not have a signature look or a single marquee name, but it has something arguably more powerful: consistency, culture, and a deep bench of people who believe in the mission.

The Chef

James Beard Award–winning chef Michael Mina is the founder of Mina Group, overseeing 30+ restaurants. His bold, balanced cuisine draws from Egyptian roots and emphasizes longevity, mentorship, and cultural storytelling.

28 Mar 2025